How's your summer going? Is it busy? Maybe too busy? The kind of busy that when you get a moment's peace in an afternoon or on a weekend, you're not quite sure what to do with yourself, like something's missing or wrong? Maybe you turn to your phone to find something to fill that uncomfortable, empty moment. Or buy something online. Watch some mindless TV. Or go to the kitchen to get a snack.
In general, most of us are not too comfortable with having big blank spots in our day, unscheduled time that gives us nowhere to be, nothing to do, and no one to do it with. If we're not going, doing, talking, planning, browsing, what are we? Who are we? What value do we have if we're not being productive in some way? What new thing do we have to look forward to? How will we occupy our minds and keep them distracted from the background anxiety of not knowing what's next? We need to plan for that, we think.
The pace of life is a funny thing. Our first few decades seem to be characterized by expansiveness. As we learn and grow, demonstrating some mastery over first our bodies, and then our minds, and then—hopefully, to at least some degree—our emotions. Throughout that time, as we grow, we seem naturally to take on more and more. As our capacities increase, we shoulder more responsibility. We set our sights on bigger houses, fancier cars, more luxurious vacations. What we want and need and reach for changes, often demanding increasing levels of time and energy from us. Why do we keep raising the bar on ourselves? What are we trying to prove?
Quaker author Parker Palmer said, "How easily we get trapped in that which is not essential—in looking good, winning at competition, gathering power and wealth—when simply being alive is the gift beyond measure."
We may have gotten used to a fast-paced, activity-filled life because we were doing our best to create what we thought would be a successful life. And we each may have different ideas of what that looks like, depending on how happy (or not) our childhood households seemed to be. Did our parents work so much and so hard they had little time for us? Then our picture of success might include a better home-life balance. Did they miss out on opportunities for higher education and then struggle to make ends meet through their lives? If that's the case, our idea of a successful life might place a high value on education. Were they great at family dinners, summer vacations, special holidays? Those feelings of love and belonging and fun probably echo as something we want in our lives, too.
Somewhere along the road to adulthood, many of us fall into a habit of striving, convinced that working hard will help us get what we want in life. And we do work hard. In fact, statistics show that Americans tend to work so hard that they only take about half of their allotted vacation time each year, they mostly eat lunch at their desks so they can keep working, and they continue to work even on evenings and weekends, while their international counterparts enjoy their time off. In fact, if you're sending emails to colleagues in Europe over the weekend, they may feel offended by that. It's just not supposed to happen.
The harder we work, and the busier we are, the more we adjust to that pace; so much so, that when we do have time to slow down, relax, and put our feet up, we might feel guilty for doing so. We mourn the loss of purpose; we wonder whether we contribute anything valuable to the world. But those self-defeating thoughts are a symptom of something deeper: We have lost touch with the ability to simply be and enjoy the passing moments. It's a way of living which brings peace and balance and gratitude, the secret of a happy day.
Deep down beneath all the busyness, we may yearn for more rest and quiet, especially in times of stress or overwork. When we feel weary or exhausted or wound too tight, we may wish for a lifestyle that's easier, freer, simpler. That desire to simplify, slow down, and streamline our efforts is what Quaker author Catherine Whitmire refers to as "plain living."
In her book, Plain Living: A Quaker Path to Simplicity, she writes,
"Plain living is a spiritual journey of discovery, a path to be followed, not a goal to be achieved. It is not always an easy path to walk, but it does lead to deep contentment and a joy-filled way of living as witnessed by the serenity and grace which often characterizes the lives of elderly Quakers and others who have practiced plain living over the years."
Those of us gathered here this morning are fortunate because our tradition—from its earlier days in the 1600s—has placed the idea of simplicity right at the heart of the practice of faith. As Frances Irene Taber, quoted in Whitmire's book, said,
"It may surprise some of us to hear that the first generation of Friends did not have a testimony for simplicity. They came upon a faith that cut to the root of the way they saw life, radically reorienting it. They saw that all they did must flow directly from what they experienced as true, and that if it did not, both the knowing and the doing became false. In order to keep the knowledge clear and the doing true, they stripped away anything which seemed to get in the way. They called those things superfluities, and it is this radical process of stripping for clear-seeing which we now term simplicity."
So the idea behind our testimony of Simplicity is the intention to clear away everything that doesn't flow from the truth as we understand it at the center of our lives. That's why early Friends didn't read fictional novels or go to plays or get too caught up in the music of the time. They were trying, with all the integrity they could muster, to stay close to the Source of their lives, uninterrupted and undistracted by the fashionable, fun, and frightening things calling so loudly from the outer world.
We can think of the call to simplicity as an invitation to keep first things first in our lives. This requires a certain amount of awareness and discernment. We begin to think about our time and energy as resources we are given and we want to be good stewards and use them in a way that benefits our families and communities and honors God. Keeping first things first might mean we remember Love is the greatest blessing and so we choose to sprinkle it everywhere as we go about our day. Or it might mean we hold an intention to listen for God's quiet leadings all week long, no matter how many distractions come our way. Keeping first things first means we remember what's true about life, about us, about God, and we make the effort to live in tune with the truth within us.
Our Old Testament reading speaks to this very thing, as Moses lifted up what was most important for the children of Israel to remember as their time in the wilderness was drawing to a close:
"Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up."
Moses here is naming that "one, true thing" to keep at the center of our hearts. That's also what Frances Taber was doing when she suggested that everything we do needs to flow from the truth in us so that we can keep our knowing clear and our doing true. That's simplicity, aligning our thoughts, words, and deeds with the deepest truth we know. It might not be easy, in an age as loud and fast-moving as ours. But we know we can find that truth, if we are willing to make a little space in our lives and turn toward the quiet within.
Sometimes our out-of-control busyness has to do with a deep feeling of insecurity or anxiety, like we've got to do all that we can to make sure we'll have what we need. We worry about our bills, about our homes, about our families. The things that keep us up at night are likely the things that keep us pushing hard through the day. But God has an answer for those things too. It's possible to nurture a growing and deepening trust in God that clears away the anxiety and replaces it with peace. We can our nurture and deepen our trust that God is truly good and that we are being cared for. I admit this feels like a risky thing to try if you are worried about finances or fretting over a future move. But if we try it in small batches—trusting God to lead us, to provide an answer, to bring clarity just today, or just this hour, or just this minute—we will find that God proves true. We really do have help, more help than we know. And as we listen and trust, answers come. The way opens, as Quakers like to say. Bit by bit and step by step. We just need to try it to see. Simplicity.
That's what Jesus was getting at in the passage we heard from the book of Matthew. He's sitting on the mountainside, offering words of wisdom to the crowd gathered there. This is part of what's known as the Sermon on the Mount. In this passage, he is telling them not to worry—knowing how next to impossible that is for us to do. Why would he suggest something that seems so unreachable? Because worry, and the fear behind it, robs us of our ability to find peace. In fact, perhaps you've heard the saying that "Worry is ingratitude in advance," which means when we worry, we're mentally practicing an outcome we don't want to happen. It's so much better to turn toward the quiet of our hearts, to notice where we feel fearful, to breathe softly and reach for some deep truth that we know—that God has always been there, that life is a gift, that we are being cared for. Sweet moments of remembering like that, realigning with our deepest truth, will remove the worry lines from our faces.
Here's how Jesus said it:
"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?
And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."
Seek ye first the kingdom of God means is all about that alignment with the goodness of God. It invites us to watch for "that of God" in our hearts and the hearts of everyone we meet. When we let go of all the distracting, unimportant, and inflammatory things the world offers us and instead remember Love's truth and live by it, the noise and chaos will drop away. The light of truth shines directly into the scary shadows and they are gone.
In fact anytime we find ourselves rehearsing a fearful future or replaying hurts and slights and mistakes from the past, we can realize we are caught up in a swirl of emotion that makes us blind to the reality of God at hand. Richard Foster wrote,
"Still another step toward simplicity is to refuse to live beyond our means emotionally. In a culture where whirl is king, we must understand our emotional limits. Ulcers, migraines, nervous tension, and a dozen other symptoms mark our psychic overload. We are concerned not to live beyond our means financially, why do it emotionally?"
Here in 2024, the drama of fast-moving news cycles and the flood of social media can threaten to fill any mental and emotional space in us a simpler lifestyle creates. I like Foster's idea that we can learn how to balance and care for our emotional lives in much the same way we do our financial and physical lives. To know when we've had enough. To say no thanks to things that discourage or upset us. To turn away from harmful images and inflammatory ideas, and turn purposely toward that truth, the truth of Love in the center of our souls. We know how to be kind. We know how to be good. We know, already, what really matters at the end of the day. And it all begins in recognizing the goodness of this moment, remembering, as Parker Palmer said, that "simply being alive is the gift beyond measure."
We find rest there, and peace, and light, as the unimportant things fall away and our friendship with God grows. It's worth trying, practicing, nurturing in ourselves. In closing I'd like to offer the lyric of a beautiful and popular Shaker hymn that is quite Quakerly in its ideas. It's a song we often sang before gatherings at my Quaker seminary, and it speaks to the way we gradually find, with Spirit's help, a simpler and infinitely more loving way to live:
Simple Gifts
'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free
'tis the gift to come down where you ought to be
And when we find ourselves in the place just right
'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.
When true simplicity is gained
To bow and to bend we shall not be ashamed
To turn, turn will be our delight
'Till by turning, turning we come round right.
'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free
'tis the gift to come down where you ought to be
And when we find ourselves in the place just right
'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.
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